Saturday, 19 May 2012

The Olympics and the peasantry - continued

While flicking through the news yesterday evening, it became clear to me that the arrival of the Olympic Torch - spreading doom and recession from Greece to the UK - presages a summer when sane and rational beings would be well-advised were they to spend three months in a state of communications denial. However, this will not do when there are a bunch of egotistical cretins spreading brainwashed ectoplasm across the world.

Earlier in the week, I came across this priceless piece of Olympic claptrap, justifying not merely the total gridlock of central London but putridly denying the unwilling dupes of the taxpaying majority even basic health care when leeching sports bureaucrats need to have their egos deflated.

One of the key figures behind the 2012 bid, Simon Clegg, was so
involved in negotiations to host the Games that his is one of three
British signatures on the IoC contract which secured the Olympics for
London.

Speaking generally about the competition to win the Olympic
Games, he said the International Olympic Committee had come to expect
special treatment across the board.

"There will be some people I have no doubt who will look at
this and say that those people in positions of authority in the Olympic
movement and across world sport are being treated quite royally," he
said.

"But that is the level of expectation that there is in world sport

"If we hadn't committed to deliver that as part of the bid
process - which is a requirement, an IOC requirement - then quite
frankly the bid would have failed.

"So whether people like it or not, we need to deliver in the
vast majority of these areas because it's what's expected to host the
Olympic Games."

The final statement suggests that Simon Clegg, whoever he might be (hopefully not related to Cameron's preferred domestic pet), demonstrates the kind of contempt for those not involved in his particular collective delusion. We have seen the extent to which civil liberties, from the right to peaceful protest downwards, are to be eroded during the periods of hysteria, and the disruption to people's lives that is proposed.

Now why the hell should anyone play along with people from the "Olympic movement" and their expectations to be treated as superior beings? What is the IOC's status that allows its panjandrums to demand superior services to those normally delivered to the masses, while bankrupting and destroying cultural and social structures? "Winning" the opportunity to pander to the delusions of egotistical morons in the name of "sport" is about the most contemptible piece of national delusion yet known - and one perpetrated by both Tories and Labour.

The sunk costs of the London Olympic bread and circuses are so enormous that it would be a quixotic gesture not to hope that the promised economic dividends aren't delivered to at least in part make up for the huge waste of resources expended to date. What would be much more appropriate is to make its supporters and participants enjoy the true level of public service in the UK. Why shouldn't an IOC member experience the pleasures of trying to find a doctor available after five in the evening, or wait for hours in A&E amongst the drunk and dispossessed? Or queue for the Tube and trains with peak crushes? These are mere human beings, no better or worse than the rest of us.

Simon Clegg, on the other hand, comes over like a pre-pubescent gushing over pop stars. Feeding their delusions becomes much more important than addressing the pathetic servility and craven brown-nosing that epitomise the mad and unhealthy relationships where sport has become a toxic combination of capitalist greed, opiate for the disenfranchised masses and a totem of cretinous nationalism. To hear people like this reminds me why, even with most protest channels locked down, the inner emigration will become essential for six weeks.